Aragon and Navarre; Catalonia 441
tinued side by side with those elected by the council. There were usually
distinctions between greater and lesser members of the concejoi between
nobles (mfanzones) and citizens, between holders of office (honoratii) and
simple neighbours (victim), the villagers or townsmen.
Legislation had other sources besides the Fuero Juzgo through the new
charters granted by the king. The municipality exercised jurisdiction
according to custom and tradition in cases which were not expressly
included in their charter. Further, the fueros of the bishop and the
lords contributed an element to the legislation of the period, just as did
the municipal councils.
The inhabitants of Leon and Castile lagged far behind the Muslims in
point of material comfort Agriculture, limited as yet by the bare necessities
of life, was fostered by the Benedictine monks alone, and for the most part
the population confined its energies to war. Industries, however, sprang up
at Santiago de Compostela in Galicia round the shrine of St James, and
craftsmen began to organise gilds. The salt industry, too, was kept up in
Galicia. But there was less freedom of trade than in the preceding period,
and taxation generally took the form of duties imposed on the necessaries
of life. Money was scarce, and Roman and Gothic types of coin were
still current. The official language was Lathi; but Romance was already
a formed language, although there are no documents extant in the vulgar
tongue till the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century.
Scarcely anything is known of Aragon and Navarre at this period.
In Catalonia, a West Frankish fief, the Franks exercised a profound
influence on the organisation of society. Here the counts were landowners,
who granted or leased out their lands, and this practice gave rise to the
copyholders (<^7Wfltarm?), the viscounts and other subordinates of the count.
Later, the grant of lands by the king to soldiers, whether in the shape of
alods or in that of benefiria, led to the formation of a fresh group of free
owners. Thus the nobility of Catalonia acquired the full powers of French
feudal seigneurs. The common law of all three realms was the Fuero
Jttzgo, to which Catalonia added the Frankish capitularies. There were
also charters for towns in Aragon and Navarre, but their text has not come
down to us, while tioejuero of Sobrarbe is generally regarded as a forgery.
In Catalonia there are extant the Juero of Montmell, the town charter
of Cardona given by Wifred, and the privilege of Barcelona granted by
Berengar-Raymond L
The history of Spain, so far traced, is very different from that of
other Western countries. No land is more marked out by its mere
geography and local separations as the very home of rival kingdoms. It
fronts towards the sea, and it looks towards Africa: if it borders upon
modern France, it is yet separated from it by the almost impassable
Pyrenees. It still bore the imperishable marks of Roman rule: it had
been flooded by the Teutonic invaders when the Empire fell, and it had
been by them even more closely joined to Africa. Then it was again